criticism that the free-born American is insatiate for money, and that
everything else pales into insignificance before the diameter of the
mighty dollar. That is the favorite taunt of those who do not admire
our institutions and behavior, and the favorite note of warning of
those who would fain think well of us. No one can deny that the
influence and power of money in this country during the last thirty
years have been enormous. One reason for this is obvious. The
magnificent resources of a huge territory have been developed during
that period. Men have grown rich in a night, and huge fortunes have
been accumulated with a rapidity adapted not merely to dazzle and stir
to envy other nations, but to turn the heads of our own people. We have
become one of the wealthiest civilizations, and our multi-millionaires
are among the money magnates of the world. Yet popular sentiment in
public utterance affects to despise money, and inclines to abuse those
who possess it. I write "affects," for here again the point of
hypocrisy recurs to mind, and even you very likely would be prompt to
remind me that, according to our vernacular, to make one's pile and
make it quickly is a widespread touch-stone of ambition. True enough it
is that there has been, and is, room for reproach in the aggressiveness
of this tendency, and yet the seeming hypocrisy is once more
unconscious in that the popular point of view intends to be sincere,
but the situation has been too dazzling for sober brains and high
resolves. For let it be said that keenness of vision and a capacity for
escaping from the trammels of conventional and inveterate delusions are
essentially American traits, and as a consequence no one more clearly
than the American citizen appreciates the importance of material
resources as a factor of happy living, and none so definitely as he
refuses to be discouraged by the priestly creed that only a few can be
comfortable and happy in this life and that the poor and miserable will
be recompensed hereafter for their earthly travails. His doctrine is
that he desires, if possible, to be one of that comfortable and happy
few, and in the exuberance of his consciousness that human life is
absorbing, he fortifies the capacity to make the most of it by the
quaint, convincing statement that we shall be a long time dead. His
quick-witted, intelligent repugnance to the old theory that the mass
should be cajoled into dispensing with earthly comforts has helped to
give a humorous, material twist to his words; and yet, I venture to
assert, has left his finer instincts unperverted, except in the case of
the individual. This combination of an extraordinary opportunity and a
shrewd intelligence has, however, it must be admitted, produced a
considerable and sorry crop of individuals guided by the principle that
wealth is the highest good, and should be sought at the expense of
every scruple. Their many successes in the accomplishment of this
single purpose have served to create the impression that the whole
nation is thus diseased, and have done the greater harm of dwarfing
many an aspiring nature, spell-bound by the cloud-capped towers and
gorgeous palaces which sheer money-making has established. As a result
the best Americanism is menaced both by the example of accumulation
without conscience, and the dangerous public atmosphere which this
generates, in that the common eye is caught by the brilliance of the
spectacle, and the common mind lured to meditate imitation at every
sacrifice. So they say of us that the American hero is the man of
material successes, "the smart man" who "gets there" by hook or crook,
and that we are content to ask no embarrassing questions as to ways and
means, provided the pecuniary evidences of attainment are indisputable.
The patriotic American resents this as a libel, and maintains that this
type of hero-worship is but a surface indication of the public soul,
just as the horrors of the divorce court are but a surface indication
of the general conditions of married life. Yet the patriot must admit
that there is danger to the noble aspirations which we claim to cherish
as Americans from the bright, keen, easy-going, metallic, practical,
hard-headed, humorous citizen, male and female, whose aim is simply to
push ahead, at any cost, and who in the process does not hesitate to
part with his spiritual properties as being cumbersome, unremunerative
and somewhat ridiculous. The materialist is no new figure in human
civilization. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die," is but
the ancient synonyme for "we shall be a long time dead." A deep,
abiding faith in the serious purposes of humanity has ever been obvious
to us Americans as a national possession, however foreigners may deny
it to us, but the American nature is at the same time, as I have
suggested, essentially practical, level-headed, and inquiring, and is
ever ready with a shrewd jest to dispute the sway of traditions founded
on cant or outworn ideas. It behooves you then, if you would be a true
American, to beware overstepping the limit which separates aspiring,
intelligent, winsome common-sense from the philosophy of mere
materialism. There lies one of the great perils of democracy; and
unless the development of democracy be toward higher spiritual
experiences, Americanism must prove a failure. Keen enjoyment of living
is a noble thing, so too is the ambition to overcome material
circumstances, and to command the fruits of the earth. A realization of
the possibility of this, and an emancipation from dogmas which
foreordained him to despair, has evolved the alert, independent,
progressive American citizen, and side by side with him the individual
whom the less enlightened portion of the community have enshrined in
their hearts under the caption of a smart man. This popular hero, with
his taking guise of easy-going good nature, assuring his admirers by
way of flippant disposition of the claims of conscience and aspiration
that "it will be all the same a hundred years hence" is the kind of
American whom every patriot should seek to discredit and avoid
imitating.
To _A Young Man_ wishing to be an American. III.
The foregoing suggestions will suffice, I think, to demonstrate to you
that we are not uniformly a nation of Sir Galahads, and that certain
types of Americanism, if encouraged and perpetuated, are likely to
impair the value and force of our civilization. But having dispelled
the hallucination that we are uniformly irreproachable, I would remind
you that, in order to be a good American, it is even more necessary
for you to appreciate the fine traits of your countrymen than to be
keenly alive to their shortcomings. There are two ways of looking at
any community, as there are two ways of looking at life. The same
landscape may appear to the same gaze brilliant, inspiring, and
interesting, or flat, homely, and unsuggestive, according as the eye
of the onlooker be healthy or jaundiced. It is easy to fix one's
attention on the vulgar and heartless ostentation of the rich, on the
cheapness and venality of some of our legislators, on the evidences of
hypocrisy and false hero-worship, materialism, and superficiality of a
portion of our population, and in doing so to forget and overlook the
efficacy and finer manifestations of the people whose lives are the
force and bulwark of the state. It is easy to go through the streets
of a large city and note only the noise and smoke and stir, coarse
circumstance and coarser crime, neglecting to remember that beneath
this kernel of hard, real life the human heart is beating high and
warm with the hopes and desires of the spirit. It is not necessary for
a human being, it is essentially not necessary for an American, to
look at life from the point of view of what the eye beholds in the
hours of soul-torpor. True is it that Americanism stands to-day as
almost synonymous with the struggle of democracy, and that the equal
development of the life of the whole people for the common good is
what most deeply concerns us; but this does not mean that it is right
or American to adhere to what is ordinary and low, because it is still
inevitable that the ideals and standards of the mass should not be
those of the finest spirits. It was an American who bade you hitch
your wagon to a star, and you have only to reflect in order to recall
the spiritual vigor, the righteous force of will, the strength of
aspiring mind, the patriotic courage, the tireless soul-struggle of
the early generations of choicely educated, simply nurtured Americans.
Their thought and conscience, true and star-seeking even in its
limitations, laid the foundations of law and order, of civic liberty
and private welfare, of national honor and domestic repute. Their
enterprise and perseverance, their grit and suppleness of intelligence
wrested our broad Western acreage from the savage and--
[_Note._--I was here interrupted in the fervor of this genuine
peroration by my wife Josephine's exclamation, "Oh, how atrociously
they abused and persecuted those poor Indians, shunting them off from
reservation to reservation, cheating them out of their lands and furs!"
It is not agreeable to be held up in this highwayman fashion when one
is warming to a subject, but there is a melancholy truth in
Josephine's statement which cannot be utterly contradicted. Still this
is what I said to her: "My dear, I had hoped you understood that I had
referred sufficiently to our national delinquencies, and that I was
trying to depict to my correspondent the other side of the case.
However just and appropriate your criticism might be under other
circumstances, I can only regard it now as misplaced and unfortunate."
I spoke with appropriate dignity. "Hoity, toity, toity me!" she
responded. "I won't say another word."]
--wrested our broad Western acreage from the savage, and in less than
half a century transformed it into a thriving, bustling, forceful
civilization. Their ingenuity, their restless spirit of inquiry, their
practical skill, their impatience of delay and love of swift decisive
action have erected countless monuments in huge new cities founded in
the twinkling of an eye, in the marvellous useful inventions which
have revolutionized the methods of the world, the cotton-gin, the
steamboat, the telegraph, the telephone, the palace-car--in the eager
response made to the call of patriotism when danger threatened the
existence of their country, and in the strong, original,
clear-thinking, shrewdly acting, quaint personalities which have
sprung from time to time from the very soil, as it were, in full
mental panoply like the warriors of the Cadmean seed. Their stern
sense of responsibility, their earnest desire for self-improvement,
their ambitious zeal to acquire and to diffuse knowledge have founded,
fostered, and supported the system of public schools and
well-organized colleges which exist to-day in almost every portion of
the country. The possessors of these qualities were Americans--the
best Americans. Their plan of life was neither cheap nor shallow, but
steadfast, aspiring, strong, and patient. From small beginnings, by
industry and fortitude, they fought their way to success, and produced
the powerful and vital nation whose career the world is watching with
an interest born of the knowledge that it is humanity's latest and
most important experiment. The development of the democratic principle
is at the root of Americanism, but whoever, out of deference to what
may be called practical considerations, abates one jot the fervor of
his or her desire to escape from the commonplace, or who, in other
words, forsakes his ideals and is content with a lower aim and a lower
outlook, in order to suit the average temper, is false to his
birthright and to the best Americanism.
It has been one of the grievances of those, whose material
surroundings have been more favorable and who have possessed more
ostensible social refinement than the mass of the population, that
they were regarded askance and excluded from public service and
influence. There used to be some foundation for this charge, but the
counter plea of lack of sympathy and distrust of country was still
more true, and an explanation and, in a large measure, a justification
of the prejudice. True strength and refinement of character has always
in the end commanded the respect and admiration of our people, but
they have been roughly suspicious of any class isolation or assumption
of superiority. It has been difficult accordingly for that type of
Americans who arrogated tacitly, but nevertheless plainly, the
prerogatives of social importance, to take an active part in the
responsibilities of citizenship. They have been mistrusted, and
sneered at, and not always unjustly, for they have been prone to
belittle our national institutions and to make sport of the social
idiosyncrasies of their unconventional countrymen for the
entertainment of foreigners. And yet the people have never failed to
recognize and to reverence the fine emanations of the spirit as
evidenced by our poets, historians, thinkers, or statesmen. Our
forceful humanitarian and ethical movements, our most earnest reforms
found their most zealous and untiring supporters among the rank and
file of the people. Abraham Lincoln was understood last of all by the
social aristocracy of the nation. Emerson's inspiration found an
answering chord in every country town in New England. True it is that
on the surface the popular judgment may often seem superficial and
cheap in tone, but the wise American is chary of accepting surface
ebullitions as the real index of the public judgment. He understands
that mixed in with the unthinking and the degenerate is a rank and
file majority of sober, self-respecting men and women, whose instincts
are both earnest and original, and who are to be depended on in every
serious emergency to think and act on the side of civilizing progress.
It is the inability to appreciate this which breeds our civic censors,
who are led by their lack of perspective to underestimate the
character of the people and to foretell the ultimate failure of our
experiment.
The increase of wealth and a wider familiarity with luxury and comfort
through the country has made a considerable and more important class
of those whose material and social surroundings are exceptional. The
participation of the citizens of this class in the affairs of
government is no longer discouraged--on the contrary, it is welcomed
by the community. Indeed, many men have secured nomination and
election to office solely because of their large means, which enabled
them to control men and caucuses in their own favor.
[_Note._--An appearance of spontaneity is preserved in these cases by
the publication of a letter from leading citizens requesting the
candidate to stand for office. He thereupon yields to the overwhelming
invitation of the voters of the district, and his henchmen do the
rest.]
But though the possession of wealth and social sophistication are no
longer regarded as un-American, the public sentiment against open or
tacit assumption of social superiority, or a lack of sympathy with
democratic principles, is as strong as ever. It is incumbent,
therefore, on you, if you would be an American in the best sense, to
fix your ideal of life high, and at the same time to fix it in
sympathy with the underlying American principle of a broad and
progressive common humanity, free from caste or discriminating social
conventions. It is not necessary for you to accept the standards and
adopt the behavior of the superficial and imperfectly educated, but it
is indispensable that you accept and act on the faith that your
fellow-man is your brother, and that the attainment of a freer and
more equal enjoyment of the privileges of life is essential to true
human progress. We have, as I have intimated, passed through the
pioneer stage of national development; we have tilled our fields,
opened our mines, built our railroads, established our large
cities--in short, have laid the foundations of a new and masterful
civilization; it now remains for us to show whether we are capable of
treating with originality the old problems which confront complex
societies, and of solving them for the welfare of the public and the
consequent elevation of individual character.
The originality and clearness of the American point of view has always
been a salient national characteristic. Hitherto its favorite scope
has been commercial and utilitarian. Yankee notions have been
suggestive of sewing-machines, reapers, and labor-saving contrivances,
or the mechanism of rushing trade. Now that we have caught up with the
rest of the world in material progress and taught it many tricks, it
remains for the true American to demonstrate equal sagacity and
clear-headedness in dealing with subtler conditions. To be sure the
scope of our originality has not been entirely directed to things
material, for we have ever asserted with some vehemence our devotion
to the things of the spirit, squinting longingly at them even when
obliged to deplore only a passing acquaintance with them because of
lack of time. The splendid superficiality of the army of youth of both
sexes in the department of intellectual and artistic exertion, which
has been one of the notable features of the last thirty years, has
shown clearly enough the true temper and fibre of our people. To
regard this superficiality as more than a transient symptom, and
thereby to lose sight of the genuine intensity of nature which has
animated it, would indicate the shallow observer. Our youth has been
audacious, self-confident, and lacking in thoroughness because of its
zeal to assert and distinguish itself, and thus has justly, in one
sense, incurred the accusation of being superficial, but it has
incurred this partially because of its disposition to maintain the
privileges of individual judgments.
Our young men and women have been blamed for their lack of reverence
and their readiness to form conclusions without adequate knowledge or
study in the teeth of venerable opinion and convention. Indisputably
they have erred in this respect, but indisputably also the fault is
now recognized, and is being cured in the curriculum of education.
Yet, evil as the fault is, the traits which seem to have nourished
it--unwillingness to accept tradition and a searching, honest
clearness of vision--are virtues of the first water, and typical of
the best national character. There are many persons of education and
refinement in our society who accept as satisfactory and indisputable
the old forms and symbols which illustrate the experience, and have
become the final word of the older civilizations in ethics, politics,
and art. They would be willing that we should become a mere complement
to the most highly civilized nations of Europe, and they welcome every
evidence that we are becoming so. As I have already suggested to you,
the nations of the world are all nearer akin in thought and impulse
than formerly, but if our civilization is to stand for anything, it
must be by our divergence from the conclusions of the past when they
fail to pass the test of honest scrutiny, not by tame imitation.
Profoundly necessary as it is that we should accept with reverence the
truths of experience, and much as our students and citizens may learn
from the wisdom and performance of older peoples, it behooves the
American to prize and cherish his birthright of independent judgment
and freedom from servile adherence to convention. Almost everything
that has been truly vital in our production has borne the stamp of
this birthright.
The American citizen of the finest type is essentially a man or woman
of simple character, and the effect of our institutions and mode of
thought, when rightly appreciated, is to produce simplicity. The
American is free from the glamour or prejudice which results from the
conscious or unconscious influence of the lay figures of the old
political, social, or religious world, from the glamour of royalty and
vested caste, of an established or dominant church, of aristocratic,
monkish, or military privilege. He is neither impelled nor allured to
subject the liberty of conscience or opinion to the conventions
appurtenant to these former forces of society. For him the law of the
state, in the making of which he has a voice, and the authority of his
own judgment are the only arbiters of his conduct. He accords neither
to fineness of race nor force of intellect the right of aristocratic
exclusiveness which they have too often hitherto claimed. To the
cloistered nun he devotes no special reverence; he sees in the haughty
and condescending fine gentleman an object for the exercise of his
humor, not of servility; he is indifferent to the claim of all who by
reason of self-congratulation or ancient custom arrogate to themselves
special privileges on earth, or special privileges in heaven. This
temper of mind, when unalloyed by shallow conceit, begets a quiet
self-respect and simple honesty of judgment, eminently serviceable in
the struggle to live wisely.
To the best citizens of every nation the most interesting and vital of
all questions is what we are here for, what men and women are seeking
to accomplish, what is to be the future of human development. For
Americans of the best type, those who have learned to be reverent
without losing their independence and without sacrifice of
originality, the problem of living is simplified through the
elimination of the influence of these symbols and conventions. Their
outlook is not confused or deluded by the specious dogmas of caste.
They perceive that the attainment of the welfare and happiness of the
inhabitants of earth is the purpose of human struggle, and that the
free choice and will of the majority as to what is best for humanity
as a whole is to be the determining force of the future. To those who
argue that the majority must always be wrong, and that as a corollary
the will of the cheap man will prevail, this drift of society is
depressing. The good American in the first place, recognizing the
inevitability of this drift, declines to be depressed; and in the
second, without subscribing to the doctrine that the majority must be
wrong, exercises the privilege of his own independent judgment,
subject only to the statute law and his conscience.
There is a noble strength of position in this; there is a danger, too,
in that it suggests a lack of definiteness of standard. Yet this want
of precision is preferable to the tyranny of hard and fast
prescription. It is clear, for instance, that if the men and women of
civilization are determined to modify their divorce laws so as to
allow the annulment of marriage when either party is weary of the
compact, no canon or anathema of the church will restrain them. Nor,
on the other hand, will the mere whim or volition of an easy-going
majority force them to do so. The judgment of men and women
untrammelled by precedent and tradition and seeking simply to
ascertain what is best and wisest for all will settle the question.
Though the majority will be the force that puts any law into effect,
the impulse must inevitably come from the higher wisdom of the few,
and that higher wisdom in America works in the interest of a broad
humanity, free from the delusions of outworn culture. The wisdom of
the few may not seem to guide, but in the end the mass listens to true
counsel. Honesty toward self and toward one's fellow-man, without fear
or favor, is the leavening force of the finest Americanism, and, if
persevered in, will lead the many, sooner or later, with a compelling
power far beyond that of thrones and hierarchies. The wise application
of this doctrine of the search for the common good in the highest
terms of earthly condition to the whole range of economic, social, and
political questions is what demands to-day the interest and attention
of earnest Americans. The problems relating to capital and labor, to
the restraint of the money power, to the government of our cities, to
the education of all classes, to the status of divorce, to the
treatment of paupers and criminals, to the wise control of the sale of
liquor, to equitable taxation, and to a variety of kindred matters are
ripe for the scrutiny of independent, sagacious thought and action. To
the consideration of these subjects the best national intelligence is
beginning to turn with a fresh vigor and efficiency, but none too
soon. Though democracy and Americanism have become largely identical,
the spread of the creed of a broader humanity in the countries of
civilization where autocratic forms of government still obtain, has
been so signal and productive of results that the American may well
ask himself or herself if our people have not been slovenly and
vain-glorious along the paths where it seemed to be their prerogative
to lead. Certainly in the matter of many of the civic and humanitarian
problems which I have cited, we may fitly borrow from the recent and
modern methods of those to whom we are apt to refer, in terms of
condescending pity, as the effete dynasties of Europe. They have in
some instances been more prompt than we to recognize the trend of our
and the world's new faith.
To _A Young Man_ wishing to be an American. IV.